AVES ISLAND. 351 



Windward Islands also, and among* them Aves Island, adding that 

 this group of islands never was separated from that jurisdiction by- 

 Spain, and thus recognizing that the eminent domain was in said 

 island. To the hook and title already quoted, may be added book 

 ninth, title forty-second, Digest of the Indies, by which, through various 

 letters royal, from 1591 up to 1634, the navigation and commerce of 

 the Windward Islands were regulated and controlled ; title second, 

 book fourth, also of said Digest, which regulates discoveries by sea, 

 providing, by the first law, that no one should proceed to the Indies, 

 to make new discoveries, without royal permission. Do not all these 

 provisions reveal the exercise of jurisdiction on the part of the govern- 

 ment of Spain in the Western Indies, islands, and mainlands of the 

 ocean sea, of which the King has been declared lord and master by 

 the first law, title first, third book of the Digest of the Indies^ whilst 

 they indicate his decided intention to retain the doniinion of all that 

 vast territory? Is it not a principle recognized in law, that the mere 

 intention is enough to retain possession? Merlin, in his Eepertory of 

 Jurisprudence, ad verbum "■ possession," says : "In order to lose pos- 

 session of a thing, it is not enough that we should cease to have the 

 enjoyment thereof. It is required that we should have had the inten- 

 tion of abandoning that possession." 



The foregoing expositions demonstrate the truth of the third propo- 

 sition : that Spain maintained her title to Spain, not only up to the 

 date of the foundation of the captaincy general of Venezuela, exclusively 

 deemed satisfactory by Mr. Eames, but that she also maintained it 

 subsequently to that time. 



The fourth proposition is, that Spain included, at the time, Aves 

 Island in the captaincy general of Venezuela. In the absence of the 

 original document by which this captaincy was erected, we have the 

 royal order already quoted, bearing date June 13, 1786, instituting the 

 court in Caraccas, and circumscribing the district of Santo Domingo, 

 to Spanish portion of that island, to Cuba, and to Puerto Kico, thus 

 bringing under the jurisdiction of Caraccas, the territory dismembered 

 from that of Santo Domingo, a part of which the Windward Islands, 

 the "Aves" included, had been. The Windward islands, therefore, 

 remained under the jurisdiction of the captaincy of Caraccas, where the 

 new court had been instituted to obviate all prejudices to its inhabitants. 



The fifth proposition is, that the "Aves" continued under the juris- 

 diction and in possession of that captaincy general until the date of its 

 independence, under the name of Venezuela. The truth of this propo- 

 osition lies in the fact that Spain made no change in the jurisdiction 

 allowed to the captaincy general and to the court of Caraccas, and 

 neither adjudicated nor ceded the "Aves" to any foreign power. 



The sixth proposition is, that when the republic of Colombia came 

 to be organized, the "Aves," as a part and parcel of Venezuela, fell 

 into the power and came under the territorial sovereignty of that 

 republic. Than this, nothing more natural. The jurisdiction, dele- 

 gated by the government of Spain, and which was exercised by the 

 captaincy and court of Caraccas, inured to the independence of Vene- 

 zuela, and she resumed her dominion in the territory, over which her an- 

 cient authorities had exercised jurisdiction in the name of the sovereign. 



